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I started this kite back in October 2010 and fresh from finishing the last in my Calvin & Hobbes series, was searching for a new look.

As you'll know, if you've seen any of my previous kites, cartoons have a special place in my heart. But this time I wanted something a little more contemporary; something that spoke to a wider audience than Calvin.

Of the plethora of choices Family Guy stood out head & shoulders above the rest: it has a synergy with the Calvin strips of Watterson, not visually perhaps, but more in the way it comments on our world. Perfect fodder for a kite then.

I knew from a very early stage that there was only one image I wanted to adapt; something from a scene in which Lois, dressed in fetish gear, says "the safe world is banana", before smacking Peter, fully bedecked in a leather gimp outfit, in the mouth.

That wasn't quite enough though. Great for one side of a kite; but what of the other?

In stepped Quagmire: who better to be on the reverse of the kite, watching Lois & Peter at play?.

Knowing what I wanted to do, I then needed to think about the kite to use as the basis of the build. My love affair with Ozone's snowkites is well known, and so it was only natural that I expand my quiver: this time though I evicted the moths from my wallet and splashed out on a brand new 12m Manta M3.

Two days after the kite arrived it was deconstructed into its component parts (having never been flown), and adorned the every available space in my flat.

Very shortly after dismantling the kite the delays started. I blame my friend Mark for the first of them.

We were in my study one afternoon, looking at a few of the time lapses I'd shot for the early parts of Kite Making Three, and discussing our plans to visit Nevada in early 2011, when Mark pipes up "you should build one of these for the guys at NABX you know".

That conversation was responsible for diverting my attention (I'm easily distracted) for at least three months!

January rolled round as the NABX kite progressed and brought some excitement with it, in the form of an ambulance ride to A&E. A week in hospital, and strict instructions to take it easy after that, meant more delays. I finally finished the NABX kite in March, and was looking forward to getting back to work on my own kite, when yet more hospital time beckoned. Two weeks this time.

My health improved to the extent that NABX was back on the cards and during the event I meet so many wonderful people, and started so many video projects, that it was not until the end of May 2011 that I picked up work on the Family Guy kite.

All the delays proved a boon though. I'd been through a steep learning curve on the NABX kite, and with the video work, so much so that when I came back to this project I found that I was able to progress very quickly - whilst filming the entire process without undue delay. Even so, it was still several month's work until the day finally arrived when I closed the trailing edge.

Now it's over I'm still glad I did it, still happy with the design and quietly proud of the result. I do think this is my last cartoon though. Time to move on I think!

This is the best video I've seen involving kites. Great work. The time lapse is always a pleasure to see. I hope you keep making vids like this. Thanks for giving me the pleasure of seeing this amazing video.

Wayner: I use Adobe Illustrator for the design work. Once the original panels have been cut into A4 sized pieces and scanned, I can re-create them as vectors in illustrator then overlay the design. Illustrator's great for this because it'll allow an image size of 5m x 5m - which means I can do the design at 100% of the original size (although, on a kite this size, I can only do half of it at a time - even with a 5m x5m canvas)!

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